Born in Naples, Italy, Santonicola is a master pizzaiolo who worked, according to the subsequent press release, at Fiorenzano Pizzeria and Brandi, birthplace of the pizza Margherita. In 2004 he opened Via Tribunali pizzeria in Seattle, then last year he moved to Washington, D.C., where he opened Pizzeria da Marco.

Jerrier says, via email, that besides making pizza, Santonicola will be rounding out Cane Rosso’s menu with traditional Neopolitan dishes. “We already have started doing calzones and will likely add gnocchi and eggplant parmigiano,” Jerrier writes. “We are also looking at some typical friggatoria [fried] items like arancini, croquettes, timballo, fried sardines, etc.”

For the record, it is Cane Rosso, not Il Cane Rosso. The mistaken name keeps getting reprinted/reblogged everywhere, no doubt in part because the restaurant’s website is ilcanerosso.com. The first time I wrote about Cane Rosso, Jerrier told me in the course of my fact-checking (a vanishing art, I guess) that the reason the website is ilcanerosso.com is that the domaine name canerosso.com was already taken.

Months later, I noticed that the website refers elswhere to the restaurant as Il Cane Rosso, not just in the url. Huh? I shot a email to Jerrier asking him about it, and here’s what he answered: “Our website still says ‘Il Cane Rosso’ because I am the world’s worst webmaster…. We are launching a ‘real’ website on 10/1 that will have all the branding corrected and in place.”